Feb-mar 2011

THE PEARL Soka University of America Student News Magazine

VOL.3 SPRING 2011

Table of CONTENTS TABLE Obhgrhrertjrdhrhtrw

016 Politics in Australia Takako Yoshizawa

004 Life in Barcelona Table of contents

Juliann Petkov

005 Eternal Optimist

Monse Sepulveda

006 Tribal Cinnamon Oatmeal Nolina Doud

007 1000 miles and counting Riri Nagao

008 My.Soka.Ec

Ty Iwamoto

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got an opinion?

write a letter to the editor! email pearl@soka.edu

disclaimer:

Anonymous letters will not be printed unless otherwise approved by The Pearl senior staff. The Pearl reserves the right to reject letters and/ or columns and edit for clarity, brevity and accuracy. Letters represent only the views of their authors. Nothing on the Op/Ed pages necessarily represents a position of the The Pearl or Soka University of America.

Letter from the

EDITOR

Environmental Department Masaru Nakajima Emilia Donovan

010 Feature Article: Towards the Same End

014 Apollo’s Ground

017 Film Review

Dear Friends, Have you ever felt overcome with absolute happiness? For me, it’s a rush of adrenaline, inspiration, energy and hope for the infinite possibilities ahead of me, laced with a LFTE sense of confidence and appreciation for where I am. This feeling has come, for grounded example, right after I’ve taken flight on my last paper during finals, and I know it’s going to be really good. The end is in sight, and the product is taking shape beautifully. I’ve also often felt it working on The Pearl, after the chaos of editing and tracking down writers is over, and layout has begun to work their magic.

Michelle Hamada

018 Miles Clark 020 Sleep Deprived

(Here, allow me to take a moment to shower Sarah Randolph and Leia Marasovich (yes, 2014!) with absolute adoration, for turning our little magazine into a work of art. Appreciation too, for our beautiful, growing non-editorial staff: Cory Westropp, for making the website so splendid, Sho Nakagome, for bravely tackling the business projects I’ve long-ignored and definitely shouldn’t have, Josie Parkhouse, for re-kindling our online presence and off-line relationships. And of course, unending gratitude for our wise, talented, eloquent writers, lead and nurtured by the upcoming senior editors: Chris Larkin, Devan Torbert and Aaron Freedman. Our giant office is finally bustling and yes, there’s room for you too!)

at SUA Daniel Jacobs

022 We are living a Revolution Agnes Conrad

023 On Makiguchi Ryan Hayashi

024 War

Jean Marcus Silva

025 Capstoners Unite Garret Braun

026 Reggaeton

Kandi Haro

027 Brazilian Wax

Back to the point. As spring semester has flown by and senior-hood has settled into my bones, I’ve experienced these two-toned inspiration-appreciation moments on so many occasions, and entirely because of the direction our school is headed in. While so much of the world sits disheartened by the major global tragedies that have occurred recently, in awe and shock at the rampant violence, and people rather numbly make feverish donations to somehow help strangers across the planet, SUA is connected and in action. Think about it.

In just weeks: We’ve engaged in a school-wide dialogue about deep-rooted personal issues sparked by our dear friend Michelle Woo’s OC Weekly article, sharing more tears, honesty and critical thinking than some couples do throughout married life. We’ve sprung into action to aid relief efforts in Japan, and some of us even traveled to Tokyo and shared real-time experiences, concern and hope with the rest of campus. We’ve kept the hustle bustle of SUA life going, brightly and efficiently at that, with elections and succession taking place in all our activities. We’ve traveled everywhere—Germany for Model U.N., Pennsylvania on alternative spring break, all the while capstoning, studying, and supporting one another through daily heart-to-hearts.

This is a campus of superheroes. We never drop the ball, take all adversity in stride and keep the conversations going. I am honored to be a part of the SUA family and determined to double-up my own efforts to give back to you as much as I can before graduation.

On that note, our writers have served up a gourmet meal this issue, so I hope you’ll forgive the long while it’s taken the issue to reach you. Volume 3 of The Pearl: On education.

Loosely, that’s our theme and it’s multihued as ever. Our feature is Soka education, in honor of the Soka Education Conference this past February, and a different style of progressive education that resonates with our own mission quite interestingly! Ryan Hayashi shares with us a powerful poem on Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, the founder of Soka education. The eloquent Juliann Petkov, who is running for AD Chair if you don’t know her, writes vividly on Barcelona, and the offbeat creative education she’s gaining through her senses. Our freshman and senior columnists, Noli and Riri, write on regulation and regret, lived of course, through their experiences here at SUA. Taki Yoshizawa writes the politics column this issue, on education in her home country Australia.

And there are more juxtapositions! Daniel Jacobs discusses the no-sleep culture at SUA and its perils, while Jean Marcus tells us how he wakes up each morning without an alarm. Articles abound, from the innermost crevices of our personal revelations (see Miles Clark’s piece), to our actionpacked world’s global revolutions (see Agnes Conrad’s piece). The rest—profound, funny, homespun and delicious—is for you to discover.

Happy Reading!

Jihii

Jean Marcus Silva

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is nearly impossible not to romantize Barcelona. At the moment I am sitting in a café close to the university.

To give you a taste of where I am, the walls are white, the ceilings are high, and the floor is wooden, uneven. A solitary red pipe coils its way from the front, up the right wall, and clings to the ceiling. Wrapped around it are twinkle lights. The tables are low, and painted blue and purple, and each has its own mobile suspended above. Swanky female jazz vocals play, low from the speakers. The clouds today dip low, and the city is in limbo, waiting for the rain. If it wasn’t easy enough to imagine myself a languid expat, today is February 14, Día de San Valentín, and flowers hang limp from the purses and ears of women walking down the streets. I am drinking a chai tea latte (almost as good as the ones at The Neighborhood Cup in Aliso Viejo), and the desire to keep my keyboard clean while writing this article is the only thing keeping me from sticking my fingers down into the mug to try to scoop out the sweet, cinnamony foam sitting on the bottom.

I have no idea where the time went, how I find myself a junior in college, or what study abroad is supposed to feel like. But time seems to be paused and for the first time in a long while, I am totally content where I am, taking the time not to stress out, taking the time to breatheee.

I have had to learn how to give into the time though, how to submit to not knowing and how to accept the fact that I will invariably feel like an idiot 97% of the time.

I have made up so many words in laughable attempts to communicate with strangers. The best week, as far as not feeling like a fiveyear-old girl from New Jersey with a forced lisp, was when I lost my voice and suddenly became endearing to charming male waiters and art professors alike. Sadly laryngitis can only last so long, and I am back to trying to make this city my own, trying to communicate

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with people on the streets, in the subways, in class.

I am living with a 75 year old woman named Pepita, whom I love; I have never had such a steady supply of clean underwear in my life. Before coming to Barcelona, the idea of living with an old woman was the farthest thing from how I pictured my time here.

However, I look forward to coming home after class, eating with her, and watching episodes of Walker Texas Ranger, or CSI. I love the tiny little shower, the fake flowers, the doilies.

I love her weird relatives who come over everyday for lunch and shout at each other about the economy (la crisis), who pull out dirty jokes written on napkins, and always kiss me goodbye.

My piso (apartment) is located right by a metro stop, but lately I have opted for the hour or so walk to the university instead.

The city is beautiful and the people are surprisingly friendly. In the times that I’ve gotten lost and gotten over myself enough to ask for directions, someone has always walked me a block or two in the direction I need to go. I am sure that I appear absolutely crazy to most people I walk by in the mornings though, because I am almost always listening to a podcast and either laughing out loud or crying indiscreetly.

My classes are a lot harder than I expected them to be, but this might be my own fault as I have naively chosen to take a class on Don Quijote. For those of you who are unaware, Don Quijote is a lovely thousandpage novel written in the Spanish equivalent of what would be old English.

It is about a man’s struggle to reconcile the harsh world around him with the world he believes exists—the world of knights and

* Ps

S chivalry and adventure and dragons. He is a loco not because he suffers from some variation of a Freudian psychosis, but because he cannot recognize the difference between fact and fiction. He lives in his head.

At the moment, I am happy to say that I am not under the influence of a similar evasion.

Yes, it is impossible not to romanticize Barcelona, and that is okay. But what becomes dangerous is when we forget to open our eyes and see what is captivating about reality. No, Javier Bardem is not inviting me out to dinner, and the streets do not ring with the sound of accordions. But there is an aging musician here who splits his time between the green and red metro lines, playing underground, dragging his karaoke machine with him like some sort of oxygen tank. I pass him most days on the metro and he is always singing some Elvis classic, spitting into his mic. His sideburns are commendable and he never fails to wink at me as I pass. I think that’s pretty chivalrous.

I have learned that in Barcelona, like in most places, you have to kind of hunt for, or create the scenes that grab you, that feel unreal. Last week I finally did something explicitly touristy, and went to Parque Güell, the park/neighborhood designed by Gaudí. I went with three friends at night, after everyone else had left, after the park had taken on the form of a Doctor Seuss nightmare. We went to the highest point of the mountain that the park sits on, and shared a fantastic 87-cent bottle of vino tinto and an orange, and looked out over the illuminated city. Poco a poco, each day, Barcelona as it exists for me, here and now, begins to take shape.

It is now almost a week after having written the above article, and I am lying in bed trying to fall asleep, but I keep thinking about SUA, about you all. As resistant as I am to the cliché, I feel like I am discovering that there is something magical there, something we should not take for granted. I love it here more and more each day, but in truth, I miss you guys. Anyways, I hope you are having fun and enjoying your classes and making waves. I want to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to all my brothas and sistas in Aliso Viejo—keep it real, hola at ya girl.

S

S

Barcelona

Life in juliann petkov 2012

&

Monserrat Sepulveda 2013 Holocaust Survivor Eternal Optimist

“You can survive anything if you have a reason to live.”

This was one of the first things that Sam Silberberg said to Ian Read and me, as we listened to his survival experience. Sam is an extraordinary man. As a 10-year-old boy, he survived the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and now devotes his time to sharing his experience with visitors at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Despite his direct confrontation with wickedness and cruelty, today he is one of the most optimistic and energetic 82 year-olds you will ever meet. In fact, when we met with him, the octogenarian had just returned from Big Bear where he had donned a pair of skis, cutting through fresh mountain powder! Sam will bring his optimism and energy to campus on April 13th (6:30 pm, Pauling 216) where he will recount how he survived the holocaust. Even though the realities are horrifying, his message is about the joy to live.

This past Wednesday 16, Hector Ariztizabal came to SUA to perform for our campus community and share his personal story of torture and terror in Columbia. He narrated how the Theater of the Oppressed came to be and how the death of his brother at the hands of the Columbian army motivated him to bring his story to the stage. Sadly, only four students attended his performance. As I sat that day in Pauling 216, an upsetting question struck me: what if only four students attend Mr. Silberberg’s lecture? Soka University cannot let war and cruelty be forgotten. This coming April 13, come to Pauling 216 at 6:30 pm and support the museum and all remaining survivors in their effort to summon a movement for peace. Say, Never Again.

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FRESHMAN COLUMN

SENIOR COLUMN

wondering what would’ve happened if I waited one or two years after High School before coming here. If I were to have made that decision, my actual halfway point at SUA would’ve been my starting point. I thought about this a lot because I felt like I came in with poor grades (or I felt they were), not enough motivation to work hard and not enough maturity to understand people who come from different backgrounds. And after two years of being at SUA, I started thinking differently.

So what could’ve I learned and done in two years before coming to SUA if I waited? I could’ve gone to a community college and boosted my grade and confidence to attack academics at SUA. I could’ve taken up internships and worked part time so that I understand the ‘real world’ more and maybe pay for my own tuition. I could’ve entered as a Humanities student from day one as a freshman instead of realizing how much I love it in senior year. Not to mention, I could’ve been with either the class of 2012 or 2013.

My list of “could’ves” could go on. But my list of all the amazing things that I’ve learned to appreciate is by far exponentially greater. First, my ‘seniors’ would not have been the class of 2008. Although the classes of 2009 and X are great upperclassmen, no other class could’ve fulfilled the role as my seniors but 08. They were exemplary and a group of people that truly believed in the great things that we, as underclassmen, could accomplish.

I also know for a fact that I would not have joined the Cross Country and Track & Field teams to begin with.

When I did join, the timing couldn’t have been any more perfect. I joined right when the program was still in its early stages of development and there were no recruits with superior athletic abilities to intimidate me. When I joined, I was lucky

because the girls were so supportive even though I’ve never ran in my life.

I really developed the confidence to continue doing it even as expectations got higher because of that. Now, looking back as a four-year athlete, life without running and life without Soka athletics seems non-existent.

I’m not even trying to imagine what it would be like without it, I simply can’t.

And last and most importantly, I cannot even begin to express how happy I am that 2011 is my class. I think every class is special in their own ways but there is no other group of people I’d rather share my four years here than the class of 2011. For one, I have to say that we have the greatest people. We have people from all over the world with different stories and struggles to share, that speak multiple languages, artistically and musically talented, charismatic, intelligent, and not to mention straight up awkward.

All of these characteristics make 2011 amazing and it makes me even happier to know that I’m a part of this class.

This is not something that is unique to myself. We all have regrets and things we hope were different in our lives. And on a daily basis, we are always given all this cliché advice about taking every moment as opportunities and how everything happens for a reason. I don’t know if everything happens for a reason but I do feel like every moment (no matter how good or bad) should be appreciated and contributes a huge deal of how things in your life are shaped. There’s really not much I know about life but it’s a given that nothing will ever be perfect. Every situation will have aspects that don’t exactly turn out the way you want them to have. And sometimes, it just takes knowing that you can’t go back in time and ‘fix’ your mistakes to realize that you just have to extract the good things you gained and move on.

and counting

Even beyond Max Borders’ lamentation of bureaucratic legislation, regulation abounds around me and I see how it marginalizes so much potential, quelling it because it does not fit within some narrow category of admissibility. To expound on this idea, I have my personal background: I am in my first year of college at Soka University, but having graduated a year early from high school, I am still seventeen.

This places me in a regulatory limbo because I must take responsibility for myself here and yet my parents are still legally responsible for me and I am denied many of the same rights as my peers. This institutionalized marginalization brought to my attention the extent to which our lives are regulated by overarching institutions. For example, despite having a genuine interest in politics, I cannot vote while people for whom politics is but white noise spewing from old windbags in suits can. What truly piqued my curiosity was the foundation for these regulations—why, because I am seventeen, am I viewed as incapable of taking responsibility for myself while my eighteen year old peers are? I realized that the more one deviates from the narrow normative category, the more he/she is subject to regulatory marginalization. nother experience that dovetailed into this examination was a Queer Theory class I recently took. Scholars examined the categorization of “normal” versus “deviant” and how this has been integrated into society and institutions.

In Queer Theory, the norm being contested was that of biological maleness/ femaleness being inextricably linked to masculinity/femininity and heterosexuality.

Queer Theory looks at all the permutations of this matrix as proof that it is not an essentialist truth, but rather the societal superimposition of a normative category that expels natural variation and therefore subordinates it. Since I did not subscribe to the “normal” flow of high school, I am marginalized and my potential squandered.

Although my situation will be assuaged within half a year, such is not the case for many members of the LGBTQ community, or even for Max Border, who did not enter the dominant paradigm of large corporations. y theory is that we are falling prey to our basic instincts. Our inherent fear of the unknown has created this enmeshment of categories which we use to know the unknown by way of sweeping generalizations. This need to cut away at data with an analytical knife (as described by Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) has given way to the creation of hierarchy, wherein we marginalize all facets deemed deviant. As humans, though, we have this staggering intellect at our disposal—intellect capable of recognizing when we are falling victim to biological blunders like the institutionalized regulation of categorical hierarchies.

We are actually regressing when it comes to our most essential biological drive—the survival of our species—because we are limiting the potential advances that these marginalized members could provide. To take this argument out of the cold language of science, we are quelling the latent abilities of billions of people by imposing regulations based on arbitrary, superimposed societal categories.

I

literally lived my first two years as an SUA student regretting a lot of things that I did. I also realized that I did more things only so that I wouldn’t regret them later and ended up regretting them anyway. I don’t even know why I did this. I felt like this was such a waste of time and energy when I could’ve used that to do something much more productive and satisfying. But this was something I had difficulty with. Now, I wouldn’t say that I’ve overcome this terrible tendency that I have but I can say that I’ve become better at adjusting the way I look at things so I don’t dwell on them and feel unhappy about it .

Upperclassmen have always told me things, and to live in the present with no regrets was probably the most common. But being the stubborn and impatient person that I was, I never cared to take those wise words and apply it to my life. I had to learn the hard way. At the end of sophomore year, it hit me. The simple thought of “oh my gosh, I’m done with half my entire Soka life!” just put everything into perspective. In fact, I only had three semesters left on campus, which is less than what I’ve completed. I had all these ridiculous thoughts going through my head at that time. “I’m not going to see half my classmates for an entire year! Am I ready to go study abroad already?

First ‘08 graduates, and then ‘09!

Wait, where did my first two years go?”

The halfway point of my SUA life was significant for numerous reasons but most importantly it was because I spent a lot of time

By Riri Nagao -2011-

egulation based on normative categories is the death of meritocracy.

R

BY.NOLINA.DOUD *2014*

tribalO A T M E A L 1000 1000 Miles Miles

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EPARTMENT

My.Soka.Ec Taeko “Ty” Iwamoto (2013) SECRETARY

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arch last year, I was giving a speech at the dining hall. I had decided to run for the Executive Council secretary position 10 days before I was given a chance to talk in front of about 200 people staring at me. I felt like I was going to throw up and faint.

I remember thinking, “I’m going to read this script, walk away, go back, take a shower and sleep.” But I’m here now after a year, in the position I never thought I would fit in. Today, when I look back at the past 12 months, I would describe them as enjoyable and challenging.

I clearly remember the first Executive Council meeting we had in the late August last year. I was completely lost. After three summer months of staying at home and being lazy, I could not think of anything. I was just sitting there, listening to other four members sharing what they wanted to see happen at SUA in the next 10 years. Especially during the first week, I got frustrated with myself at my hesitation to share my opinion with other members, and the difficulty of typing and talking at the same time.

The secretary’s job requires patience—there is no sense of accomplishment until the end of year. After taking minutes at a meeting, there is another meeting you need to go to. When you finish writing a weekly report, another week starts. This continues for a year without any pause in between. It is a labor-intensive position that is not always visible to or praised by others.

“Make your responsibility your joy,” a senior told me last year before I went back home for summer. Yes, that’s what I’m working on right now. I feel like I can leave this position without any regrets if I can truly enjoy what I do. Because the secretary’s job is inherently physically tiring and time-consuming, I need to keep reminding myself of the value behind all the work and the reason why I decided to run for this position. In my application for EC, I wrote , “I am now determined to contribute to this university in my way as the EC secretary, in establishing the early foundation of this school as a member of EC, also in supporting EC as well as the

The interesting thing is that I don’t regret submitting the application a year ago. I can’t really explain why. Maybe because this position offers me experience that no other position would offer, like hearing the history of SUA from alumni and faculty, and feeling support from SUA community members. I definitely feel more connected to the school than before. Also, maybe because I know that I will be okay no matter how difficult a situation gets. I have absolute trust in my team members that they would help me out.

I hope you don’t get any negative image of EC by reading this. I love EC from the bottom of my heart. I want to emphasize that I’m glad to be in this position. By being a member of the team, I am able to think more about SUA, more about peers, and more about myself. All I need to work on is my personal hesitation and negativity. I’m thankful for those who voted for me, those who pushed me to run for the position, and the two amazing girls who ran with me. I’m also very appreciative of all SUA students for encouraging me throughout the last semester. Honestly, without you, I wouldn’t be here today. And, I can never thank my beloved EC team enough.

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nvironmental O

utreach/Education, Policy, and Research are the three committees of the Environmental Department that converges every week to take on the school’s environmental issues. Every topic from climate change, composting and elevator use is discussed. We learn about the environmental issues we face throughout the world and then think about what we can do as students to help practice one of the missions of SUA: to Foster leaders for the creative coexistence of nature and humanity.

Making changes through environmental department is not always an easy thing to do. There are many setbacks which can be discouraging.

We have faced difficulties in trying to reach out to other students with our message and in attempts to work with staff on policy changes. At times we have wondered if anyone else had even read the mission statements of the school.

Although the department has faced challenges, we have experienced great accomplishments in the past year. This Fall semester, former club, Green Planet, merged with Environmental Department and formed the Outreach and Education committee. This brought new members along with a new energy to the department. The fall semester also saw the implementation of the Environmental Committee.

The committee is made up of faculty, students and decision makers around campus. It has opened the door for communication in order for there to be tangible change. An example would be when the Research Committee brought information to Arch Asawa about possibly installing hand dryers in the bathrooms and he made the decision to purchase some and test them out in the gym bathrooms. The Environmental Committee will be an essential part of change on policy throughout campus into the future.

Even though the Environmental Committee is in place to help keep the lines of communication between all ED and staff open, there needs to be something more. It is important that not

By: Masaru Nakajima (2011) & Emilia Donovan (2013)

only the members of one student group are dedicated to seeing change at SUA. The environmental problems that the world faces will not be solved if only a few make it their life’s work to do something. Environmental Department wants the students of Soka to be empowered through the truth; we do not want to just tell you that unplugging your phone charger saves a certain amount of electricity. What we need is a change in perspective to ensure a lasting consciousness about the world that we all want to contribute to.

So-called “environmental issues” such as global warming and climate change may seem something beyond our control. However, it is important to always remind us that our life is inevitably affecting the surrounding environment in one way or another; that our actions actually count. Lights above us, food we eat, papers we print… Key is the ability to see the connection between our lives here at SUA and their influence on both the immediate and global environment.

We believe that this one of the quality of “a global citizen” that SUA aims to foster.

The Environmental Department aims to assist the SUA community on this mission while educating and challenging ourselves on environmental efforts. Although the so-called “environmental issues” in the world are nothing new, changes for sustainability are yet to be achieved in different in international, national and local levels. The Environmental Department is trying to take part in this still-growing environmental effort by working in a community of SUA. We hope that many more students join us in this cause.

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journalism function humanism value culture equality reform experience THE nature art pragmatism logic progressive inquiry democracy ethics education perception value journalism function humanism culture equality reform experience nature art pragmatism logic progressive inquiry democracy ethics education perception value journalism function humanism culture equality reform experience experience nature art pragmatism logic progressive inquiry democracy ethics education perception value journalism function humanism culture equality reform experience nature art pragmatism logic progressive inquiry democracy ethics education perception value journalism function humanism culture equality reform experience value 010 nature art pragmatism logic education perception

TOWARD

SAME END

Feature Article

By Jihii Jolly (2011)

On Progressive Education, Soka Education and Our Value-Creating Friends at Goddard College

W

e all do it: stroll through the SUA cafeteria with our overstuffed planners in tow, at least one nook of our heart secretly bursting with school pride. We each covet different plus points of our education—southern Californian sunshine, ample hiking ground, private bathrooms, overseas adventures in foreign languages, warm and accessible professors, a noble mission, extremely generous donors, a vast liberal arts playground. Our university’s unique features are plastered on buses, lettered on SUA brochures, orated to prospective students, debated at the annual Soka education conference and preserved in the plethora of speeches, poems and performances that our student body has proliferated over the past ten years.

Once, at an SUA soccer game, the opposing team’s cheering squad even chanted our “create value” motto in our faces. Soka education ought to be easy to define. We live it daily and write about it on applications to jobs, internships and graduate school. We are unique, contributive global citizens at a tiny school next to a canyon.

For me however, Soka education has long sported a large rhetorical question mark. Does Soka education’s departure from the mainstream qualify it as progressive education in the Deweyian tradition? What exactly is progressive education? Are our small liberal arts school features truly unique, or can they be found at other similar institutions in the United States?

Where can we find Soka pedagogy and ensure we actually are receiving the education we think we were promised? Is Soka all that radical, or has our posture become increasingly conservative the longer we’ve been around?

In an effort to pen down a cohesive narrative around these questions, The Pearl staff shared many a lunchtime dialogue with faculty, students, alumni and some of our liberal arts counterparts across the country. We’ve become both confused and enlightened in the process. What is most intriguing is what we learned from our new friends at Goddard college, an inspiring, extremely value-creative institution that has one tremendous difference from SUA: off-campus living. So here is some food for thought: our notes in their raw, current state, which we hope the student body will continue to develop!

Devan Torbert and Christopher Larkin contributed to this article.

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n important aspect of progressive education is that it aims to foster students who can become socially engaged citizens.

Elaine Sandoval (’11), a member of the Soka Education Student Research Project explains, “Hans Henningsen shared with SESRP that the Danish folk schools movement began with the purpose of educating all citizens in order to vote well and contribute to a democratic society.” Lead by school reformers such as Francis Parker and John Dewey, the movement for educational reform in America began during the progressive era of the 20th century.

“A critical thing is that the values and content that we teach in a given educational program should be negotiated with the students, keeping the times in which everybody lives in mind,” comments Professor James Spady. “One thing Dewey was critical of was simply accepting (or rejecting) an inherited traditional curriculum merely because it is what has always been.”

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, the Japanese educator who is considered the founder of Soka education, widely read the works of progressive educators. His foundational work was continued by his disciples and Soka schools were founded throughout Japan.

Soka University of America is the first American educational institution that follows in this tradition. According to a 2001 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, SUA’s creation was something of an optimistic, educative social experiment. “Coming up with a plan is always far easier than its execution, and with the arrival of students still months away, and accreditation years off, the realization of the egalitarian dream is far from a sure thing. Critics of such experiments point to all the failures of the 1960’s as ample evidence that radical departures from the mainstream do not work easily in our culture,” John Pulley wrote.

Social experiments, however, are often criticized for their mutability. Here we begin to wonder, is Soka education indeed progressive education? What features of SUA truly make it unique?

What thinking process went into its founding ten years ago?

“Makiguchi’s idea was that teachers should be role models in seeking wisdom,” shares Professor Michael Golden. “There is no obvious way to incorporate that into the nuts and bolts of a curriculum. It’s more of an attitude.” Liberal Arts was the chosen major, he explained, because “we were trying to think as broadly as possible about students who would be coming here in the context of the limited size of the faculty we could begin the university with.”

“The mission of Soka University of America is to foster a steady stream of global citizens committed to living a contributive life”

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A key problem in trying to implement what we so instinctively call Soka education is the fact that hardly any concrete pedagogy for it exists. “Makiguchi never really offered a methodology,” Sandoval tells us, “I see his work as taking the ideas of his contemporary Western thinkers and putting them into the context of pre-war Japan and the school environments he experienced.”

Whether or not Makiguchi developed his ideas after those of John Dewey, are also questionable. Alicia Wong (’11), an active member of SUA’s campus life, shares, “Although I believe that Dewey’s ideas have influenced the curriculum of our school, his role and relation to SUA should not be exaggerated. In fact, Makiguchi mentions Dewey’s works only a few times, in comparison to the number of times he mentions the works of many other philosophers.”

There is no consensus on whether Soka education at SUA is in fact progressive. Some say that in its earliest years, SUA was working towards some very groundbreaking egalitarian reforms such as a system of “continuous appointment” for faculty members, rather than tenure or short term contracts, and a high degree of student involvement in curricular decisions. Over time, it seems SUA has taken a more middle-of-the-road approach and subscribed to more a typical educative environment with a normal grading system and academic calendar.

Professor Spady defines progressive education as experience based education in which values are negotiated and relationships are of utmost importance. Regarding SUA he says, “Anywhere in the curriculum where you seek to create those negotiated values is a place where you are seeing student-centeredness,” he says. “Learning Cluster, without question, is an example of this, and the Capstone process can be that way too. The faculty member is a learner as well as a teacher.”

In this manner, he calls Soka education at SUA a type of progressive. “I would resist folks that want to arrange a hierarchy of progressiveness and I think Dewey would have resisted this,” he explains. “Don’t position SUA as either or. There are multiple forms of progressive schools: Montessori, Waldorf, Democratic schools, Free schools, Summer Hill in England. They each think of themselves as distinct from others.”

Soka education then, can be considered an attitude, and as Professor Golden mentioned, “I believe it is based on a fundamentally egalitarian relationship between faculty and students, in terms of mutual respect.”

What truly makes SUA distinct? In reality, our classroom size, study abroad program, student-involvement and potential for reform is characteristic of a number of progressive liberal arts schools in the nation, many of whose university mission statements explicitly follow in Dewey’s tradition.

Professor Golden emphasizes the student body as a key defining factor in the attitude we have developed. “I think the student population itself has a profound impact on the sense everyone in our university community has of Soka education. I know that I and many of my colleagues have been positively impressed by our students here, compared with those at other institutions where we may have taught.”

He further shares his belief that “faculty members who were primarily concerned with advancing their careers along traditional paths, emphasizing prestige in research and scholarship above teaching, would probably not be so interested in coming to SUA. Although our university does value faculty members’ contributions in their respective fields, it’s clear that our most important role here is as educators.”

It’s certainly true that much of the attitude that is Soka education is fostered because of our tiny campus community. Not only are class sizes small, we also have friendships with professors, and as students we collaborate on everything from campus leadership to traveling abroad together. et’s take a look at a different approach to world-bettering at another tiny liberal arts school across the U.S. in rural Vermont.

Goddard was founded in 1863 and has a total school size of 804, and a maximum classroom ratio of 12:1. Its mission has been “to advance the theory and practice of learning by undertaking new experiments based upon the ideals of democracy and the principles of progressive education asserted by John Dewey.” Recently, the mission was redeveloped through dialogue and now reads: “To advance cultures of rigorous inquiry, collaboration, and life-long learning, where individuals take imaginative and responsible action in the world.”

Goddard also includes both undergraduate and graduate programs on the same campus, though the number of graduate students is far greater than SUA’s. Scott Harris is a 25-year-old graduate student in his third semester at Goddard. He’s is pursuing a Masters in Education and is on the student council and a full, voting member of the Board of Trustees. What makes Goddard unique, he says, is that “the faculty are on a first name basis, like their ideas challenged, and treat you as an equal. You are encouraged and supported to step out of your comfort zone to learn.” He chose Goddard because the program was small, the food is great, and the staff “are amazing, caring and supportive.”

He says that Goddard’s new mission statement is based on “what we do as a community, and the fundamental aspects of what we feel the college contributes to society.” Like at SUA, students come from all over the world. “We just had someone from Pakistan graduate, and there are some from Canada, and another amazing person coming in from Germany.”

“The type of person who comes to Goddard was best said by my friend Lydia,” he explains. “‘I overheard this conversation in the café the other day: Person A: That project that you’re working on is amazing. You are so passionate about your work.

Person B: But your project is so amazing, I don’t know how you do everything, it is really making a difference and inspires me.’”

What’s really different about Goddard is that it is a pioneering low-residency school. This means all programs only go on for eight days a semester on campus, and students then return to their homes off-campus to do their school work. Scott lives offcampus in Montpelier, VT, twenty minutes from the college and when not at Goddard, works full-time has a behavior specialist in a public school in Vermont. “The majority of people who go to Goddard have full or part-time work while they go to college full time,” he says.

Other unique features include that Goddard doesn’t give grades, just written evaluations from advisors and students,

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which then determine if credit is received. Assessment Learning (APL) is also supported, so students have the chance to offer a portfolio of previous work in a rigorous evaluative process that could get them academic credit for it. Most interestingly, when undergraduates enter, they must have a certain number of college credits already, “so the age range goes from a year out of high school to people in their 60’s and older.”

In Scott’s major, masters students and undergraduates “are in everything together from advising groups, to mini courses, and everyone is welcome to go to any workshop, which I think adds an extra level of openness, and also really ups the ante for the BA students to see what is possible to do.”

Classroom life is similar in some respects to SUA’s capstone process, where students have regular advising sessions to work on and dialogue about semester projects. Students can also put on their own class, something like our Learning Clusters, in collaboration with faculty or program directors.

According to Scott the purpose of progressive education “is to be able to follow your passions in life, and grow into a person who has a deeper understanding of the world.”

“We experience life as we are doing our studies,” and due to Goddard’s low-residency model, he says, “we are continually working with the communities we are in and learning from these interactions.”

SUA’s focus on the internal campus community and our close-knit almost insular collaborations are a striking difference from Goddard’s approach. Yet our missions are strikingly similar and students at both institutions are passionate about developing their critical minds and contributing to the world in a holistic manner.

Perhaps it is an asset that Soka education is indefinable and pedagogically inaccessible. It’s forced us to foster the attitudes and relationships that make us who we are, keep us inspired and allow us to secure a future of continued d i ve rs i f i cat i o n and development.

Goddard and many other liberal arts schools offer us honorable examples of student-centered learning and ideas for our own future expansion.

Developing a university is a highly unique opportunity and perhaps progressive education’s gift is that we can develop so many different brands of it.

“To advance cultures of rigorous inquiry, collaboration, and life-long learning, where individuals take imaginative and responsible action in the world”

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Art of Lifism helped

Unfinished

with

Mural

sketches

Pho tog rap h

yb yJ anic eL ee

Apollos Ground Staircase painting by leia Marasovich (2014*

Come help paint every sunday !

6:30 - 8:30

Last semester during one of the first Environmental Department meetings, “staircase painting� was scribbled on the dry-erase board next to about twenty other eco-friendly ideas. Sophia Kawada was the first to volunteer to take on this project, and immediately after I decided to join her. Little did we know that the following semester that scribbled idea would become a colorful reality.

Through this project, we hope to create an opportunity for students to display their artwork and become involved in the beautification process of Soka. We teamed up with senior Leonard Bogdonoff, freshman Devan Torbert, and the Art of Lifism Club, and alll served to put this project in motion.

Michelle Hobby was also extremely helpful and encouraging, as she donated paintbrushes and supplies. After receiving the grant to buy paints, the staircase painting is well underway.

The main focus of this project is to bring environmental awareness and enhance creativity. We hope the painted staircases will

encourage students to take the stairs, as opposed to using the elevator. This will challenge students to take action in sustaining the environment and becoming consciously aware of how their daily choices impact the world. SUA uses an ample amount of electricity to maintain the campus; however, there are a large range of options for decreasing the amount of energy used.

Painting the staircases is one beneficial way of decreasing electricity usage and promoting environmental and health awareness. Another benefit of this project will be the increase in student’s overall well-being and fitness.

This project was inspired by the unfinished mural in Residence Hall 370.

Seeing the potential which this project could bring, Sophia Kawada, Leia Marasovich, and Devan Torbert decided to take action to continue what was started by Soka alumni.

Now with a sufficient amount of support, encouragement, and enthusiasm, this project is getting colorful! Please join us on Sundays to paint!

Ocean Themed !

Politics in

Australia

By Takako Yoshizawa (2011)

{ } Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, delievers a speech to supporters at the Labor Party election headquarters in Melbourne, Australia.

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Takako (aka Taki) Yoshizawa was born and raised in Australia, Melbourne. She is currently a senior at SUA, concentrating in Social and Behavioral Sciences. She is passionate about education and women’s rights. Here is an article briefly introducing Australian politics and educational issues in Australia. The issues don’t just pertain to Australia, but may be related to SUA as well.

ustralia’s second largest economic resource after mining is international students. They are estimated to contribute equivalent to US $18 billion a year to the Australian economy. Many Asian students go to Australia for their secondary and tertiary education. However, since the global recession, Australia faces a huge decline in incoming international students. One reason for this factor owes to the racist attacks on Indian students in 2009 and 2010. There has also been a decline in Chinese students, another huge body of students whom Australia relies on for its economic stability. The 2010 election was the first “hung parliament” since 1940, a rare phenomenon in any western society, in which the opposition party and the party in rule have approximately equal parliamentary seats. Currently, the federal government struggles to maintain a steady economy.

Since the parliamentary change in August 2010, when Australia elected its first female prime minister, there has been a shift of focus on education. According to our education minister “There is more effort and more funding for schools now than at any time in the nation’s history and we are proud to be the government delivering the biggest schools modernization program and the largest schools computer rollout ever undertaken in this country.” Australia’s center-left Labour party (aka ALP who address the interests of the working middle-class) has proposed several educational policy changes since its power with the support of the Australian Greens Party. I saw the immediate effects of this when I went home last year. Our prime minister, Julia Gillard, who is also our former education minister, funded many private and public schools for architectural reform because of some of the poor states of school infrastructure.

Australia currently has the most number of students attending university in history. However, university loans have built up to AUD $20 billion, meaning that these students have lifetime student loans to pay off. “Australia’s most expensive university student has amassed to an astonishing $384,957 debt,” according to Perth Now. Many students avoid paying their tuition by staying in school with no intention of repaying taxpayers. It is the challenge the Gillard government to come up with a system that forces students to enter the work force.

This is not a unique phenomenon only seen in Australia. As a senior at SUA I witnessed many of my friends just finishing their graduate school applications and some continue to apply to colleges in Europe. We see many SUA alumni follow this pattern of pursuing degree after degree. Personally, I know a few students who are still in graduate school to earn their Ph.D. I believe that in addition to their passion, one of their reasons is related to the founder’s constant encouragement for students to challenge themselves and earn a Ph.D to have a voice in society.

The recent issue in regard to this matter, however, makes me reflect on the purpose of pursuing degree after degree.

This era is significant in that we have the most number of youth ever in history, and that literacy rates are the highest in the history of humanity. Naturally, we also have an increase in the number of students applying for professional degrees in academia. In the field of psychology, there is even a new terminology called “emerging adulthood” because more and more students are delaying their stage of adulthood in their lives by staying in school.

I think it is prominent we think about our purpose in education. The SUA community has become very diverse in various ways over the past four years that I have been here and we each attend SUA different reasons. The nature of Soka education is established on the philosophy that every student has a mission of their own. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, the founder of Soka Education, stated that education serves to allow students to find meaning in their community and attain happiness within the environment they live in. We might not all go to graduate school but while we are still in university, let me ask you all: What is your purpose for seeking education?

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s I sit wrapped in a blanket in the 385 3rd floor For When you printer room scrambling to put together the most are feeling perfect choreography of words, I wonder what it would be like to be an actress—or more accurately, an improvisational actress. To embody a character to the point at which I could authentically stand on stage and exist as another person is completely contrary to my mousy mumbly, and overly-calculated self. In fact, the character, Michelle Hamada, you see wandering around campus is indeed a work-in-progress, 21-years in watched Michelle Williams I felt her suffocating the making and still not performed with complete claustrophobia. My friend and I were so engrossed ease. But to express myself without hesitancy in the film that our eyes didn’t stray from the screen and to unabashedly perform another character is once even as we shakily passed boxes of Sour Patch something so attractive to me, as I ponder all that is Kids and Kleenex between us. lost in the discord between thought and action. hat was the power this film had? Even f I were to trace these thoughts to their now, a month later, I can’t quite put origin, I suppose they come from all my finger on it. All I can really say is the characters the time I spent watching interviews about Blue were just themselves. At times they effervescently Valentine. I watched this film over winter break float – their admiration for each other helping them with one of my closest friends from high school transcend over the many limitations of their class, and since then I have been both haunted and age, and limited resources. At other times, they intrigued by the film’s authenticity. The film took 12 seem trapped and their trivial miscommunications years to materialize as director Derek Cianfrance spiral them both downwards into cyclical bickering pondered how to best articulate his vision. It ended with tragic results. Some have coined the film as up being a product of improvisation after the two an anti-romance; however, its intense honesty is main actors, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams somehow redeeming. Although the film is at times spent years thinking about their roles, and a month heart-breaking, it has the charm and integrity of not living in a house together as their characters. Ryan being just another manufactured love story.

Gosling plays the blue-eyed-ukulele-playing moving here have been so many times in my company employee and Michelle Williams plays life where I have wished I could see the understated-tap-dancing-pre-med student who people from a single perspective. Admire them for loves her grandmother. The two are beautiful, kind, their positive attributes and remain blind to their creative and sincerely in love. What could go wrong? shortcomings. Times too where I wished to hide Apparently, a lot. my brattyness, my cruel internal judgment, my he film cuts back and forth between poor singing voice, and stand tall as the sincere, the beginning of their romance and six kind-hearted, talented SUA student, but it’s just not years into their marriage where things have rapidly possible here. The walls are too thin and people become bleak. Ryan Gosling is balding, Michelle are bound to catch you singing Ke$ha off key when Williams is angry, and the two struggle raising their you think you are alone in your room. That’s just the adorable daughter. The film’s true success is in reality of being human and living in close proximity its reality. Before I saw the film, I picked up an Us to each other. So while I left the film feeling a little Weekly that claimed “they’re naked! Physically and bruised and battered, I was also hopeful. In the emotionally!” and I scoffed at its cheap advertising. end doesn’t the ugly truth always trump feigned But after I watched the film, I had to admit that positivity? Even if we can’t always end things brightly the claim was pretty accurate. As I watched Ryan and triumphantly, at least we have some ephemeral Gosling I felt his passionate frustration, and as I moments of true and authentic understanding.

BLUE

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F i l m C o l u m n

M i c h e l l e h a m a d a 2011

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miles clark S.S. Randy “Macho Man” Savage; Or How I Poisoned My Hands With Ink (while writing this article...for YOU)

Our fine university on the hill is, among many things, a place of “limits and rituals.” I quote from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (IJ), my primary text for the Capstone (Tombstone) project, which I started recently with the new faculty addition who has the most razzamatazz: His Royal Highness Ciccotelli. Hal Incandenza, the main character of IJ, attends the specialized boarding school, Enfield Tennis Academy. Hal’s experience through this confined community has often struck a chord in me and my reflections on SUA. Particularly when I come to one of the many sections where Hal is presiding over a “Big Buddy” session, I am able to draw similarities that enlighten the nature of my time spent on this campus.

There seems to exist an appropriate time for bitching-complaining, pissing and moaning, stomping your feet like a wee, bitty child. Are not we are all toddlers who grow into a (false) sense of security from a perceived degree of mastery over self and environment? Who has truly shed the deep fear and hollow doubt of adolescence? Who perceives this modern existence without total ignorance and responds to _____ with eternal confidence and ecstasy?

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Who conforms to laws and customs, “limits and rituals” without the slightest annoyance?

SUA Students have often expressed the sentiment of feeling like children, and rightly so in many circumstances.Situations exist when administrators, faculty, or peers look down upon a student to such a degree that they fail to recognize their own humanity—their own inner sniffling little boy or girl—and incredulity emerges.

The true source of this incredulity or sudden bitter frustration is surely more complicated and variable respective to individual circumstances than I have explicated, but what I do know is that there seems to be a good deal of pissing and moaning on this campus.

I, myself, must have put in 100 hours of kvetching, minimum, in my first semester here in Aliso Viejo. Though I have worked that number down to a single digit, I now see a hidden value in all those furious tirades and slobbering rants.

It has been my joy, now, and in the past, to have the company of many sharp tongued fellows, with whom I complained both constructively and expressively. These two general modes of complaint can be (and usually are) perceived as critical and good, or negative and without value. They convey either distress at a situation that initiates some action, or miserable rumination in the confines of a limiting problem. Both modes of belly-aching are found by my perception to serve a higher phenomenon: community.

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Wallace writes, “’The point is it’s ritualistic. The bitching and moaning. Even assuming they feel the way they say when they get together, the point is notice we were all sitting there all feeling the same way together.’/ ‘The point is togetherness?’/ ‘Shouldn’t there be violas for this part, Hal, if this is the point?’”

The unique environment of 400odd individuals an archetype of any human system; SUA mirrors the world in all of its intricacies and our education—particularly our Soka Education—does not stop and start at the doorframe of a classroom. The bureaucracy, hegemony, ignorance, and misconceptions, that we seek to take on in our eventual fight for humanitarianism, exists here too, in small doses, like vaccines.

At SUA, where we build skills and confidence in living and adjusting our social environment, we essentially live on a tight rope arms locked with our peers for stability with what I call theSoka Safety Net of America (SSNA) beneath us. Try (we all get caught up) not to take anything here too seriously, to a point of anguish or deep stress as we have our safety net, each other, and the grievous process of complaining.

From the safety net of our families, homes, and schools, we’ve moved to the more complex SSNA. , a community of peers and greater independence, which has made us build great expectations of what SUA (SSNA) and its community will be.

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Though every preconceived notion we have is shattered in ways both good and bad, I doubt anyone predicts the stark alienation that can pervade moments of life here.

Even in our miniscule island nation of high population density and unifying factors, we are individuals, and as far as I know no individual can escape a longing for the smell of home, for mommies and daddies, and for your dog.

From Wallace, “’We’re all on each other’s food chain. All of us. It’s an individual sport. Welcome to the meaning of individual. We’re each deeply alone here. It’s what we all have in common, this aloneness.’”

Though on this campus, to a degree, we are individuals judged in relation to each other who can become wrapped up in academic and (ubiquitously incestuous) social competition, we are one another’s rocks, and experience the greatest

education when we are able to have safe communication where we laugh and grieve together, at times finding a course of action, and at timesjust finding a greater inner peace.

I find the lesser mode of complaint to be healing and natural to the inherent disposition of human connection with environment.

When beaten with rock or staff the blow vibrates out from the point of impact through the body to the mouth, where the release of wind is inevitable. Wincing at pain—the physical variation of complaining at strife—is automatic and like sneezing, can only be stopped with painful force. Sometimes life is shitty, and on those days I implore you to climb a mountain (or a dormitory staircase) and insult, blaspheme, apostrophe; cry out until you have had your fill.

I conclude by advising you to take my advice with a Costco sized grain of salt; my thoughts have no quality assurance or guarantee and I hold myself wholly unaccountable for them. Extremes exist in complaint, like all things, and one must always try and avoid stagnancy or personalized hurt.

Consult other sources, talk to people here; we are all ultimately figuring out this school together. Big doc Ikeda, in a letter to my class during CORE in August 2007, related the idea that we as about 400 people in the a truth I have viewed very differently depending upon my state of life here over the years, but at this point have no trouble in calling Truth (with a capital T).

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Let the little demon in your cockles and lizard brain express itself.

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SLEEP DEPRIVED AT SUA The perils of our It’s Friday night

at the end of an incredibly long week, and you’re as sleep deprived as ever. You were planning to settle into a relaxing evening and go to bed at 10 PM so you could be prepared for the weekend and make the most of it when all of a sudden “KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!!!!” you hear at your door. Opening it up, you see a few of your best Soka friends waiting for you with big smiles on their faces. “Come with us to hang out in dorm X”, or “Are you coming to (Insert random Soka student here)’s birthday party tonight?” they ask you with enthusiasm. You know you want to sleep. Your body and mind are aching to be refreshed. But when confronted with peer pressure…… you give in. Just imagine what your friend would think of you if you didn’t attend birthday party X? It’d be a devastating blow to your campus reputation.

“Yeah, sure, of course I’ll go!” you affirm with realenough enthusiasm. Chances are your friends went through the same thought process, and if they can sacrifice sleep for yet another night, why can’t you? Thoughts of tomorrow seem far away, and the full eight hours you were planning to get tonight can easily be replaced some other time.

I’m not even going to ask you if this anecdote represents you, because if you’re a student at SUA, chances

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Photography by Janice Lee

no-sleep culture Daniel Jacobs 2014

are it does. If people don’t come asking for your sleep time directly, there’s a good chance that it’ll happen via Webmail, where it’s difficult to go for a few hours without being invited to something that seems as though you couldn’t live without attending.

Surely this is not exclusively a Soka phenomenon: the Western world treats sleep as an unnecessary third of your life, time that should be used instead in order to spend time going out and “getting the job done” as we’re all convinced we need to do, even if it means relying only on drugs to get ourselves through the next day. Quotes like “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” and “You snooze you lose” resonate throughout our culture as if they are somehow firmly established wisdom, basically telling us that if we ever try to get enough sleep we will miss out on some critical, possibly life-changing opportunity to make our lives better.

It is true that those moments do come around every now and then and you’re right to postpone sleep when you truly need to get something important done. However, I feel that at Soka we tend to think that every single moment is one of those opportunities, making us feel as though we’re not leading active lives as true Soka students unless we are present at everything, even if it takes place at 1 AM.

Maybe it’s the fancy, exciting lettering people always put in their birthday e-mail events. Maybe it’s that the dorms are so tightly knit that any social activity sends the signal to us that we are missing out on something if we go to bed. Or maybe it’s even the idealistic vision we have pounded into us of the “perfect” Soka student who gets all of his or her work done, has time to lead several clubs, engage in deep multi-cultural conversations every night at the cafeteria, and then still has time for friends. Even if this person did somehow exist in reality, he or she would still need sleep.

It might even be possible that Soka’s close-knit setting is somewhat to blame. There is a well-established phenomenon in psychology known as the spotlight effect, in which we imagine that the people around us are watching our actions and behaviors much more closely than they actually are. We believe that people remember everything we say or do and judge us by these actions when in fact most of the people around us will likely forget something we have said within an hour or two. It’s not too tough to see how Soka’s tightly-knit student body could lead us to believe that the people who we are surrounded with every day will think less of us because we didn’t attend a specific party or a club meeting and got some sleep instead. In reality, many students have found that if you skip a certain birthday party, meeting or event, no matter how important it seemed in the event’s advertisement. . . nothing happens. That’s one of the ironies of having upwards of twenty people show up for every event: most of the time hardly anyone cares that you’re there. You can always make up the time you weren’t spending at the event, especially if you use the extra time to get a good night’s sleep.

The scary thing about our lack of sleep culture is that the same cannot be said about making up sleep time. Sleep is the fundamental process by which our new memories are stored in our long-term memory, meaning that skipping it will most likely mean that you won’t be able remember many of the good times you had while you were skipping on sleep in the first place! Studies have shown that sleep debt (meaning getting less than four hours of sleep on a given night) also decreases constructive thinking skills, mental flexibility, our ability to process information and our general reaction time. It also causes irritability, more stress, and a weakened immune system which then leads to less sleep, creating a vicious cycle of being too tired to go to sleep. Naps can only make up so much. Sleep’s most important functions come from going to bed early and sleeping the entire night, not from 30-minute recharge periods.

One of the worst findings about the effects of sleep deprivation, though, is that in a clinical study, 40% of insomnia cases could be mistaken for depression- meaning it can essentially cause the same symptoms. While depression is certainly worse than insomnia alone, depression can lead to insomnia and insomnia can contribute greatly to depression symptoms. Getting enough sleep is not a treatment for depression, but by getting more sleep you can ward off some

of sleep deprivation’s more devastating effects on your overall health and keep yourself away from a downward spiral.

Soka students appear to be living the scientific reality of sleep debt. When surveyed, 53% of Soka students report their own sleep habits as being “enough to do fairly well”, and many students report getting ample sleep on the weekends.

However when asked to rate the overall sleep culture on campus, 53% of respondents said that it “needs improvement”, and the second-place option which received 34% was that the sleep culture is “destructive to long-term student health and achievement”. Many Soka students commented on how people were “sleeping with their eyes open” in morning classes, and how stupid it is that some people actually brag about pulling all-nighters. One student even suggested that our constant clubs, hangouts and activities culture makes us forget about the real reason we are at Soka, which is to further our studies. As the evidence in favor of sleep clearly shows, you can probably take part in clubs and hang out with people even when sleep deprived. But unless you have adequate sleep you can’t possibly hope to perform at your optimal potential in terms of academics. Even people who think they’re getting enough sleep could probably use more.

Indeed, there is more motivation for getting enough sleep than simply the tough biological punishments for not sleeping. Jesse Gamble, an Oxford award-winning scientific writer about our circadian rhythms, describes experiments in which people voluntarily live in a bunker for two months and are allowed to go to sleep and get up when they choose to. The interesting thing is that after a few weeks, they all began to settle in at around 8 PM (keep in mind there was no unwanted disturbance from light), woke up at 12 AM and had two hours of restful quietness, and woke up again at 6 AM. This sleep cycle seems alien to most of us modern-day folks.

But the people who took part in the experiments reported feeling so awake during the day that they realized this was the first time they had ever been truly awake in their lives.

They were ranting and raving about their productivity and how much more present they felt because of their natural sleep.

So all in all, sleep is a vital necessity that Soka students cannot and should not be living without. My hope is that we can encourage each other to gradually go to bed a little earlier each night, aware of the benefits of sleep on our livelihood not just as students but also as people. Despite the fact that we all have many different backgrounds, Soka students share the same time zone and therefore the same Sun and moon every day and night. Therefore in addition to having a great club culture and party culture on campus, we must have a great sleep culture in order to have any other campus culture be successful. Soka education is humanistic education- so let’s put the “human” in “humanistic” by acting a little less like 24-hour robots and more like humans, who sleep and grow, grow and sleep, day after day. All in favor, say zzzzzzz . . . *In the campus, the mighty campus, the lions sleep tonight*

“Soka students appear to be living the scientific reality of sleep debt..."

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WE ARE LIVING A

REVOLUTION

AGNES CONRAD 2012

If

you’ve turned on the television or the radio lately, or picked up a newspaper in the past two months, you might have a vague idea of what’s going on the world. If you haven’t taken any of those actions, you may be even more confused. Gaddafi, Mubarak, protests? What, exactly, is going on?

In January of 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a young man in Tunisia set himself on fire in front of the provincial government headquarters after police confiscated his vegetable cart. Stemming from frustration with unemployment, a lack of political freedom, inflation, and corruption (among other things), Bouazizi’s action has inspired a revolution that toppled the government of Zine alAbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and has swept through Northern Africa and ignited protests around the globe.

In mid-January anti-government demonstrations began in Libya against leader Muammar Gaddafi who has since declared war on his own people. Having lost control of even the army in some parts of the country, Libya is now facing a humanitarian crisis as the government takes brutal actions against the populace, forcing evacuations, and prompting international cries for humanitarian intervention. More than 140,000 people have fled the country so far and the airport has been bombed to prevent international flights in or out of the country on commercial airlines. The UN has declared the situation a crisis and members voted to remove Libya from the human rights council for what many are calling crimes against humanity.

On January 25th demonstrators of all social and economic classes banded together to take to the streets of Egypt to protest the near three decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt became the first country to shut down the internet after demonstrators successfully began organizing via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. On February 11th Mubarak resigned after 18 days of protest that threw Cairo and other cities into mayhem and resulted in a death toll of more than 300.

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Civil resistance and social media have also sparked protests and demonstrations in Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Yemen, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Pakistan, and Sudan.

Yet the protests haven’t been contained. The Chinese government has begun to further restrict media and freedom of information in response to the Jasmine Revolution in which online communities have been calling for peaceful protests in major Chinese cities to support democracy. Protests have arisen parts of Europe, and in the United States protests began in Wisconsin on February 15th in response to budget cuts and the proposed removal of collective bargaining rights—a move equivalent to union busting. eople worldwide are standing up in what may very well become a global movement. So if you’re still confused and if you’re still not too sure what’s going on out there, pick up a newspaper, turn on your computer, and find out. Becoming globally informed is the first and easiest step to becoming a global citizen.

Awareness is a duty that we cannot shirk in this epic moment. The future is uncertain but one thing is for sure, this is a revolution led by the youth. The world is in our hands.

P

onmakiguchi

a poem by ryan hayashi 2012

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi – Founder of Soka Education.

Soka education Value creation Global citizen World peace Contributive live Create value I understand that to some these may seem like overused slogans or hollow clichés Don’t worry – I assure you that there is meaning behind the words 80 years ago, Makiguchi was outraged that Japan was shipping off students as soldiers like perfectly packaged products Turning classes and courses into crash courses in combat training explaining that the emperor is God Japanese are the chosen people so you’re going overseas to free the world of evil Adults taking the hands of youth . . . but not to guide them To put their fingers on the triggers saying pull it That’s how you unload a full clip Makiguchi said, “your leading these kids to their death and that’s some bullshit!”

Open up your eyes. Look at the way we’re living.

But for speaking against the system they sent him straight to prison.

Like, “your free to go, you just gotta renounce your beliefs.”

But he said no so he died as a martyr for peace in the corner of a jail cell.

With a noble, selfless spirit like, “I gave my life for the future of the children.”

Never to see the result of his work, the triumph of soka, the rise of that building – founders And driving up wood canyon as freshman, when I first saw it I felt its power Sending chills down my spine, I unconsciously quickened my breathing Thinking, “someone put this school on this hill for a reason.”

The greatest men never get to see the fruits of their toil Because the seeds that they plant are so deep in the soil.

I guess that’s what it means to be ahead of your times.

Cuz it took 80 years for the sprout to escape the confines and emerge from the Earth.

For 80 years it was invisible, submerged under dirt.

Invisible.

Invisible like his inner thoughts as he sat in a cell but you can see them now as Thoughts turned to blocks Feelings turned to buildings And hope admidst adversity turned to Soka University A school of wide diversity – the 10th anniversary and personally I can’t even start to explain the way this school has furthered me And it all started as a single idea An idea which came to life amidst death You see, makiguchi died in jail with no cremation But like a phoenix, the fire in his heart rose from the ashes And spread to other hearts like a spark in a field of dry grasses A forest fire to inspire the masses And in our age its blazing. The rage of the flame is amazing.

All from one idea, one seed, one spark So maybe the ideas in this room will bring some light to the dark You just gotta protect your flame from the storm in the wind But then again, oxygen is the very thing a fire needs to begin So adversity is the fuel To transform the pain My fire only burns higher In the midst of this pouring rain.

022

CAPSTONERS

WAR.

GARRETT BRAUN (2011)

M

Installment 5 of the Fictional series, War & pEace

aggots crawl on each other in a small pile near Eduardo Fleming’s face. Every single one of them moves in a disturbing cadence, as if they are a spasmodic blob. Eduardo feels the contents of his fleeting breakfast gathering to join the larvae extravaganza.

That’s how, perhaps, they feed, the maggots. They force anyone close enough to them to vomit back up their feast. Eduardo concentrates on thinking about flowers while above him, Victoria and her comrades chat loosely during the rest of the artillery.

- How was the show? Did he scream a lot?

A pale skeleton sentinel sits on the nearby rubble. Looking closely, if you compared this soldier with his peers, he could be considered the chubbiest of all. Food was the scarcest resource on War. Plants were all gone. Animals became monsters. Insects made the mouth salivate. Eduardo fell in their food and medical supply.

They used maggots for everything we would do with a variety of other resources: protein source, wound dressing, water. Their miraculous immaculate conception became a symbol of hope for all humans of War in the midst of destruction. In fact it became the emblem of the collectiveness of combatants.

When War started no one had idea why it happened, nor did they have the time to think about it. All organisms were dying helplessly. People committed suicide at the inevitable apocalypse of humanity. Faith did not fill their destroyed stomachs. So when young Mephisto, future general of logistics of the Scarlet Armada, discovered the first pool of larvae bringing long lost life to the arid lands of nuclear decay, it was the rebirth of a new society. The fat and languid maggot, since then, was present in the middle of the pale stripe of the red and white banner of the collective.

Maggots became the carriers and what life meant.

-Stop stalling us. We don’t have much time. We saw what happened.

A skull opens and closes its jaw while it examines the door knob of Eduardo Fleming’s office (also known, by the other side, as War’s gates). He could not find any evidence of disturbance.

-You guys haven’t seen anyone entering that room for so long that you are starting to

imagine people lunching themselves in that devilish room. – It was her first time lying.

-We all saw smoke in the air! Black smoke! – It was not a good lie at all.

-There is always black smoke in the air. – She did not have to lie this time.

-You look different sergeant.

There was something different about her indeed. Her opaque eyes sparkled. Sparkling eyes only means something for us readers. Men and women of War did not remember what sparkling was.

Her stance was more graceful, solemn. Victoria was still alert, but it was not an automatic feeling from laborious repetitions of her training. It came from her immediate surroundings. Her fingers, although ready for combat as usual, were loose.

Victoria forgot the meaning of discourse, but if remembered she would have asked to her platoon “why do you think I look different?” Even if she recalled, by a metaphysical miracle, what dialogue was, she would not have the chance to ask her boys what they saw differently in her because of the resuming explosions of artillery. No conversation could be carried on under the blast of the missile.

- The boys in the south failed. To your stations, NOW! They did not need to receive verbal instructions on what to do. They had every single detail of the battle standards embedded in their instincts. The numbers of the offensive were unknown and did not mean much to the soldiers. They never expected the boys from the south to have survived anyway. They have been losing this battle for almost a year now, with heavy tolls in their ranks, but this time they would pay back. Victoria looked different but she was still Victoria and there was no chance for them to retreat.

Eduardo, frightened by the possibility of being discovered, the blast of the explosion and Victoria’s final shout, finally vomits.

JEAN MARCUS SILVA 2011

023

UNITE

H

ello again all you faithful Pearl readers! I am happy to announce the thirds edition of Capstoners Unite, an attempt to bring about a discussion on the value, process, and results of all the studious seniors staying up late nights to finish capstone drafts. To begin, let’s first celebrate the accomplishments of all the seniors thus far!!! Several seniors that I have talked to have already completed a first draft, tremendous work, but slightly salacious for some to hear.

Others are still valiantly striving to defy obfuscation in their adventure with new ideas, topics, and articles. I am certain that all of us are striving day in and day out to produce a work of art that each of us can confidently say, “I created that.”

Since this is the month of the prized Soka Education Conference, I hope you find it fitting that I speak to the “Sokaness” of the Senior, and soon to be Junior endeavor of expounding a new and creative piece of knowledge.

As always, I have talked to four Seniors, one from each concentration, about their capstone topics and asked them a few questions: 1) What does Soka Education mean to you?

2) What role do you think the Capstone project fulfills within achieving Soka Education? and, 3) How does your personal capstone topic play into your ideas on Soka Education?; the answers to which I will recount now.

The civil ninja and sagacious social satirist, Ndubuisi “Onye” Ibeh, was inspired by a learning cluster experience in Santa Ana where he discovered the possible insincerity of the urban “development” projects there. He hopes his capstone will be an expression of what he believes is the goal of Soka Education: to bring about “compassion and wisdom” in the learner. Onye humbly states, “Hopefully, the students here are building the knowledge necessary to [cultivate] wisdom. Compassion, is what I think separates us from other knowledge-focused universities and makes us more empathetic to the various problems and different groups in society.” In his euphoria of critically thinking, Onye is certain that he can contribute the impending wisdom he will gain from pursuing a topic, “not because [he] needs a grade, but because [he] feels connected to these real problems and wants to solve them.”

The sultry environmentalist fighting for the ideas of liberal education, Bunyod “Beck” Holmatov is dissecting the effects of heavy metals in wetland water from urban runoff.

He is testing the limits of his knowledge in his personal journey to take charge of his own research in the field that

interests him most: achieving his own interpretation of Soka Education every moment. The benefit he sees in this is that each student attempting to “tests the limits of their knowledge by applying it to one specific problem… discover their weaknesses and may wish to learn more about a different field that can be necessary to better approach their problem. Thus, validat[ing] the important interconnection of all the fields and lets students value a self-driven education.”

The future art therapist and inspiration to many youth, Aastha Chhikara is using the capstone to bring together her two largest passions, art and psychology. She is using art to investigate the effects of past experiences on the importance of judgmental heuristics within the process of making decisions. Sounds tough right, “Heuristics are mental shortcuts used by people to make quick judgments.”

In her pursuit to fulfill the idea of Soka Education that she has, Aastha will “think creatively outside her limited capacity.

[And] never letting the passion to learn fade away.” Aastha hopes that through her capstone she can add a new dimension to the subject she admires. Even though she has never been able to take a class here at SUA that is directly related to her passion, she is ecstatic that she is able to pursue it through capstone.

Last, but certainly not least, the life-embracing humanist dancer, Justin Kunimoto is writing his capstone about “viewing life from the perspective of death.” He is using the experiences of terminally ill patients “as a way to determine and understand how to live the most fulfilling life.”

He’s hoping to create value from his capstone in the same way that he has added so much value to his life through the dialogue, interactions, and activities that I have been able to do with fellow students that helped me understand what I think I can give back to the world and to society.”

In his experience, Soka Education has given him a way to understand other in his environment through the broad, interdisciplinary education he receives here at SUA. Kuni states, “We don’t receive an education for the sake of it, but to be able to use it in our lives.”

As always, I implore all the readers to reach out and learn something about the passions of their fellow students by inquiring into their capstone ideas. It has been an absolute pleasure for me to hear all their stories and I am sure you will be inspired to as well. CAPSTONERS UNITE!

024

Besos desde el mitad del mundo! *meneando is Spanish for the switching/moving of hips from side to side while lowering your body to the floor.

025

the “epidemic” of reggaeton has hit night clubs in Ecuador.

have been waking up at six in the morning without an alarm clock. I can feel your jealousy coming in the near future when you read this first line. I also sleep at least eight interrupted hours every night. Now you desire me to acquire chronicle insomnia so I revolve in my bed for hours before sleeping for three before the annoying ring yells me it is time to go to class. Before you develop a greater envy of my sleeping habits perhaps you should consider if that’s a routine you want for yourself.

My dear Editor-in-Chief, Jihii Jolly, right on my first birthday at Soka, identified me as a grandpa due to my advance age in comparison to my classmates. Not that I feel I am old, which I am not. But I am indeed slightly older than my SUA friends what would justify my behavior quite appropriately. Furthermore my mental age is of a centennial voyager who decided to settle for life after decades of adventures. But nothing of those peculiarities, otherwise quite convincing, is aligned with my sleeping pattern.

I wake up early because I am a writer.

You may image a writer as someone who stays all night agonizing few pages of a book or leading a bohemian life, but the majority of professional writers do their work in the morning after they slept enough, or in the afternoon after taking their dogs to walk serenely around the block of their houses. The striving writer might lead the chaotic process of writing you romanticize in your head because he is not published yet and need to pay rend working somewhere else during the day. But I already live the life of a professional writer, without being published, because Soka allow me to do so.

But beyond my habits, beyond the inability of waking up when necessary without the annoyance of an electrical appliance, is the gesture of waking up itself that is fantastic. When we wake up with the help of an alarm clock it is easy to remember what happen if you consciously re-trace all your steps but it is easy to forget because waking up becomes mundane.

But returning from the realms of dreams naturally is one of those moments in life that are hard to reflect on, and usually give fuel for centuries of philosophical inquiries.

We are still indulging in dreams (some scary, others inappropriate) when we are dragged back from the immaterial fog of mental illusions. We don’t know when and why we emerge. On the next moment we are looking at the emptiness (or messiness) or our rooms still trying to figure out why the hell did my unconscious showed me a scene of clowns shaving ice on a frog storm. You look at your digital alarm clock, that is still working after 4 years with the same battery from when you purchase it, and the sticky number are one minute before he is suppose to ring you awake.

Photography by Janice Lee

Kandi Haro 2012

I

WAX

by Jean Marcus Silva (2011)

I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of you, with me included, wonder “why did I wake up? What made me return from a wonderful world of dreams?” Because right when we wake up, if we are not late enough, is the most appropriate time to philosophy about life, the universe, and everything else. Your brain is confused whether is awake or sleeping, and your boss is calling you because you slept in.

But for me, it is a blessing to wake up and write because my creation became an extension of my dreams. I believe that is one of the reasons why writers engage on their fictional world in the morning, right after the coffee, still connected, through a silver string, to our fantastic nightly delights. The mystery of waking up became more exciting not to be unveiled.

I suggest then, to you who endured reading, bore to dream, for you to extend your “waking up” throughout your day; not too drowsy or distracted. I plea you to extend the exciting look at a morning world, the awaken realm to your office desk, you paper cup filled with hot coffee. We should transpose the immaterial fog to your hearts and observe the world around us in less rigid lenses, and softer ideals. Our life is our dream, and to dream is to live. Nobody ever told us that dreaming should stop at dawn. We are leaving it behind because we do not know different.

Photography by Janice Lee

G

reetings from the middle of the world! All is dandy here in paradise, more widely recognized as Ecuador.

Though you guys are also enjoying a warmer-than- usual winter, I am basking in the glory that is the eternal spring. This place has everything the heart desires, and then some: delectable food for cheap, warm and giving citizens, picturesque weather, countless testaments to the power and beauty of nature, and, let us not forget, a lively night life.

I have few complaints, and most have to do with the fact that I eventually have to leave this place, but I would like to share one of my troubles with you all, if you so kindly would allow it. There is a horrendous epidemic that has hit the night clubs here. It i’s called Reggaeton. For those of you familiar with this beastly disease, you know it consists of the same back beat, defiling, sexist lyrics, and prompts the inappropriate rubbing of particular body parts on the dance floor (Sside effects include the sudden urge to perform/ dance in one steady gyration). Sure, I’ll admit, I have taken ill on one occasion or another, but, after much distress, I have found a remedy! It’s called good music. (Sorry for all the Reggaeton lovers out there, but there is needs to be a law against excess hair gel, aviator sunglasses indoors, and meneando* in one venue all at once).

Remember, not all Spanish music has to be sexist and vain. There are many alternatives that talk about the real issues plaguing the Latino community,; issues that go beyond "dandole pa’ tras" (translation: backing up your behind). There’s Nnothing wrong with the occasional dose of Wisen y Yandel or Don Omar, but make sure to tickle your ears with a little bit of knowledge and wisdom from time to time. Plus, Latin boys can actually dance, ladies!

You don’t want to waste your time with your back to him all night, dancing to Reggeaton. Change it up a little now and again, and I guarantee he can teach you a little something. ;)

Reggaeton

music column

BRAZILIAN

Waking UP

026

The Pearl report

Stateme

nt

strives er Daniel Pearl’s to emulate slain Wall Street Jour na efforts to bring every story. Foll out the human side l ow in g hi s of co urageous model, Th channels of commun e Pearl opens ic at io n in an endeavor to articu respectfully expr The Pearl report ess differing opinions. The cont lately and on ri community and the issues of concern for the campus butors to globe, aiming to , the local un realization of th e mission of Soka ify the campus toward the University of Amer ica.

CREDITS:

>> Editorial Staf f: Jihii Jolly (Editor-in-Chief ), Christopher Larkin, Devan Torbert, Aaron Freedman

>> Business Te am:: Jean Marcus, Josie Parkhouse, Sho Nakagome, Cory Westropp >> Layout Team : Janice Lee, Sarah Ra ndolph, Leia Marasovich >> Photography: Janice Lee